RETURN DAY IS FOR RIDDLES

By Celia Cohen
Grapevine Political Writer

Return Day in Georgetown is supposed to be the time
when people "return" to the Sussex County seat on the
Thursday after an election to close down the campaign
hostilities in a ceremony of reconciliation.

It is sometimes called "Returns Day," because the
election "returns" are read aloud, the way they were in
a simpler age when it was the only way to learn the
outcome.

While all of that still happens -- the returns
announced, a hatchet buried, and sworn rivals like Beau
Biden and Ferris W. Wharton riding together in a parade
-- Return Day in recent years has become something else.

A return to campaigning.

Two days after the election, when grateful voters
thought it was safe to turn on the television, open the
mail box and answer the telephone again, political
stickers are back as surely as that lose-weight-fast
spam that keeps popping up in the e-mail, heh-heh-heh.

It is the candidates, already angling for their next
office.

The stickers dotted the politicians mingling behind
the Sussex County Courthouse in a fellowship that has to
be the only gathering of its kind on earth. It is a
festive tailgate party that brings together Delaware's
political universe -- the entire congressional
delegation, statewide officials, party leaders,
legislators, lobbyists and campaign staffers.

Hardly a cell phone rings, because anyone who would
be calling is there. Defeated candidates are welcome as
fellow partakers of the rites of the campaign trail --
even Dennis Spivack, the Democratic congressional
challenger who has yet to find his "off" switch.

"This is a fight that's not finished. The election
showed everybody that I'm here to stay," he bellowed.

The stickers were a prime topic of conversation. Some
were straightforward and predictable. There were
no-nonsense ones about Lt. Gov. John C. Carney Jr., a
two-term Democrat, saying, "John Carney, Governor,
2008." Ditto New Castle County Executive Christopher A.
Coons, a first-term Democrat, reading, "Chris Coons,
County Executive, '08."

Some were coy, like the stickers saying "I Back Jack"
for state Treasurer Jack A. Markell, a Democrat just
elected to his third term. Was he using up the excess
from his 2006 campaign or craftily recycling them for a
run for governor in 2008? Markell was smiling but not
saying.

While Carney played it straight and Markell played it
cool, there were stickers that confirmed what everyone
had guessed about a gubernatorial candidate on the
Republican side.

"Charlie Copeland, Governor, 2008," the stickers said
about state Sen. Charles L. Copeland, who would have to
give up his legislative seat to try to follow in the
footsteps of his cousin, Gov. Pierre S. "Pete" du Pont.

One sticker in particular had people talking as they
tried to figure out what it meant. It looked like a
miniature Delaware license plate, down to the expiration
date of Nov. 4, 2008, the next Election Day. It read,
"MDLG08."

A little sleuthing showed the sticker had something
to do with Insurance Commissioner Matthew P. Denn, a
first-term Democrat. What did "MDLG" stand for? Perhaps
"Matt's Dog Lenny Growls"? Maybe "Matt Doesn't Like
Gossip"? No, it could not possibly mean that. He is in
politics.

Eventually the code was cracked --"Matt Denn,
Lieutenant Governor, '08." The insurance commissioner
would like a new office.

Denn might have competition . . . or he might not.
There was another lieutenant governor sticker
circulating for "Cook." Nancy W. Cook, the Democratic
state senator? Thomas J. Cook, her son who is the state
Finance Department's deputy secretary?

The "Cook" stickers did not specify an election year,
but they did have a campaign slogan, "Continuing a
tradition of common sense," which was used by Allen J.
Cook, the late state senator who was Nancy Cook's
husband and had the Senate seat before she did. Allen
Cook nearly ran for lieutenant governor in 1972, and
Nancy Cook lost a Democratic primary for lieutenant
governor in 1984. Were the stickers simply nostalgic?

"You never know," laughed Tom Cook.

There was a fighting-words sticker from state Rep.
Joseph W. Booth, a Republican spoiling to challenge
Speaker Terry R. Spence for his job. "Booth, Leadership
in 2006 . . . And Beyond," it read.

One for John F. Brady, the Republican recorder of
deeds in Sussex County, was another of those ambiguous
stickers, saying "John Brady, 2008, Let the Big Guy Work
For You!" There was a reason it was not more specific --
Brady is a candidate in search of an office. Maybe
Sussex County Council, he said, maybe insurance
commissioner.

U.S. Rep. Michael N. Castle, a Republican who
prevailed over a mini-stroke to be re-elected, had an
old-fashioned campaign button that showed he was not
ready to call it a career, which has taken him from
lieutenant governor to two-term governor to the
Congress. "Mike Castle '08," it read.

But what office? "Governor. We're going to redo the
constitution," Castle quipped.

What about Castle for Senate? U.S. Sen. Joseph R.
Biden Jr., a six-term Democrat, is up in 2008. He is
already running for president, but state law lets him
run for re-election, too, if he wants. "I'm running
again for the Senate. If he's running, I don't know,"
Biden joked.

The political powwow behind the courthouse was alive
with Bidens -- Joe the senator and his wife Jill, his
sons Beau the next attorney general and Hunter, and his
niece Missy Owens, who ran Beau's campaign.

The Bidens were having a very good day. They were
celebrating a lot of new titles in the family.

Now that the Democrats have taken over the Senate,
Joe will be the chair of the Foreign Relations
Committee. Beau, of course, will be sworn in as attorney
general in January. Jill, who teaches English at
Delaware Technical & Community College, just earned a
doctorate in education from the University of Delaware.

Next up -- a title for Hunter? There were no
political stickers for clues, but why bother when
everyone knows the Bidens are always running for
something?